Future trees coming post-Carr Fire as volunteers collect acorns

PALO CEDRO, Calif. — The Carr Fire burned more than 200,000 acres in the Northstate damaging and destroying hundreds of thousands of trees.

"The land will recover on its own, but this will give it a jump start," said Sarah Tona, a Project Biologist from a consulting firm company, Stantec.

A group of 10-to-12 volunteers from Stantec showed up at the Palo Cedro Park in Palo Cedro, where they scavenged for acorns.

Volunteers from Stantec in Palo Cedro Park

Globally, the company annually dedicates a week in September to do volunteer work. The office stationed in Redding decided to do their volunteer work by collecting oak trees acorns.

"We had a massive fire here that burned down thousands of acres, and so we are here to collect as many acorns as we possibly can to plant into these burned areas," said Sara Taylor, a Project Biologist from Stantec.

The group said they've collected around a thousand acorns from the oak trees in the park ranging from Blue Oak, Live Oak and Valley Oak trees.

"Oaks are actually really adaptive to wildlife and even if the whole crown is burned or burned to the ground, often times the roots will resprout," said Tona.

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Members of the volunteer team said they'll be giving the acorns to the City of Redding to begin the process of sprouting and planting them in the Fall of 2019.

"Fall is the correct time for planting out plants because that's right before the rainy season so you get them in the ground [and] you rely on the environment to provide all the rain and then hopefully, by the next spring, they'll be established enough with the roots to grow," said Tona.

And through their efforts, they believe that close to 3,000 live oaks will be re-planted.

Tona said volunteering for her was another way of coming together to help the community.

"It felt very connecting as a community too. I'm a transplant and I moved here 8 years ago and slowly making this my home and this just felt very... so many people were impacted and you just want to help and you feel like you can't do a lot so you just want to pitch in whenever you can," said Tona.